I'd like to say it's abnormal behavior...

So I called a guy a dickhead at work.  Not the way people usually do it, he was right there when I said it.  Well, technically I called him a fucking dickhead.  He didn't have much to say in response.  I wonder why?

Something made me mad. What a shock.

So the Swiss have decided not to extradite Roman Polanski back to the US.  Now I'm not going to get into the legal aspect of their decision, I want to talk about him and the people that support him because they're both making me fucking sick.

For anyone who might not know, Roman Polanski, a famous movie director, drugged, raped and sodomized a 13 year old girl when he was 43.  He had a trial, admitted guilt, went to counseling and then when he was supposed to report for sentencing he fled the country and went to France and has since avoided going to countries that might catch and send him back.  What a great guy.  I've seen and heard people say things like "It was a lapse in judgement" and "He's suffered enough" and "It's just wrong that he couldn't accept his Oscar in person" and other assorted idiocy.

Firstly a lapse in judgement is you deciding to do something wrong one time that goes against your normal behavior.  How many child rapists do you know of that have only ever done it once and then decided to stop?  On top of that once he fled to France he started "dating" a 15 year old.  That's not a lapse, it's a pattern.  And he's suffered enough?  HE'S suffered enough?  A child molester can never suffer enough you useless brain dead fucking imbeciles.  Oh yeah it's a terrible burden to have people say you're a child rapist when you're an admitted child rapist.  How terrible.  And the 42 days of counseling had to have been awful and this last time when they had you under house arrest in a Swiss ski chalet must have been hellish.  If you think he's suffered at all let alone enough do us all a favor and lay your head down on a busy road and wait for it.

Apparently the lesson we're to learn here is that if you want to rape children you should first become wealthy and famous.  That way even if everyone finds out you did it you'll still never have to pay for it.

Now my head hurts so to sum up:

Roman Polanski, I hope you get ass raped by a gorilla then get cancer of the dick you fucking worthless piece of shit.

Polanski supporters and apologists:  Shut.  The fuck.  Up.  Liking someone's work doesn't give them a free pass to do whatever they want.  If Martin Scorsese came to your house and ass rapes you is it OK because I really like his movies?  No.  So if you support this guy go jump off a tall building you fucking retards.  Barring that keep your fucking ignorance to yourself.

And we're back

I haven't really been in the mood to share anything since I became a shiftless layabout but I figure it's time to get back on the horse and start typing away. Let's start with something easy. People who are annoying me.

Thankfully christmas is over (see previous posts for my thoughts about all that, I'm not getting into it again here) but I was just reminded that New Year's Eve is still forthcoming and with it the inevitable stupid people and drunk drivers killing lots of other people. That made me think of something else that's been annoying the piss out of me for the last month or so.

Best of the decade lists.

I'm going to explain it again so please listen this time. The decade is NOT over until the end of next year. I went through all this with people when the whole 2000 thing came around. 2000 was not the beginning of the new millennium, 2001 was. Therefore 2000 was also not the beginning of the new century or the new decade. It's simple math, people. You start counting at 1, not zero so the decade began in 2001 and will end in 2010. Save your mostly shitty best of the decade lists until the decade is actually winding down will ya?

Irritating bastards...

Can she spell Polidori?

Eventually I knew I would have to write something about Stephenie Meyer. I don't want to. I have to. You see, this level of aggressive, willfully ignorant bullshit draws me to it. I want so much to ignore it but I can't. I want to be able to shake my head sadly and walk away.

Not gonna happen, folks.

For those of you who are lucky and don't know Stephenie Meyer she is the, for want of a better word, writer of the Twilight series. For those who are exceptionally lucky and don't know what that is, it's a series of YA vampire books. If vampires were toothless puppies and dipped in glitter.

"But Uncle E," I hear you saying, "Why do you choose to focus on this person when there are so many bad writers out there to choose from?" I'm glad you asked. Let me explain:

The vampire legend itself is ancient with roots tracing back several millennia. As far as things that go bump in the night go, they're old school. They come in many varieties ranging from mindless things barely more than Romero zombies to your more modern nobility in formal wear. In some cultures they drink blood, in some they leech the very life force out of you. There are many, many different kinds of vampire is what I'm saying and that's just the legend. The ones that people used to live in real fear of day to day from culture to culture, century after century literally all over the world.

Then you get into vamps in literature and later films and still later TV. Most of it, and by that I mean the overwhelming majority, isn't good. Most of it is bad and a lot of it is downright awful. But when it's good, man is it good.

Le Fanu's Carmilla, King's Salem's Lot, Matheson's I Am Legend, Wilson's Midnight Mass and so on plus, of course, Bram Stoker's Dracula. I mean, everyone's read that one right? Right?

I told you all that to tell you this: By reading those last three short and off the top of my head paragraphs you just did more research than Stephenie Meyers did before beginning work on the Twilight series. I am not making this up as a jokey way of saying her books are bad. The books are bad because she's a terrible fucking writer. I say that because out of her own mouth she does not read horror books. Does not read vampire books (so no, she's never read Dracula). Does not watch horror movies. Hell, does not watch R rated movies AT ALL. In interviews she said she saw a little piece of Interview With A Vampire on TV and her thoughts on it were summed up with, "Yuck" and then she thinks, thinks she saw a bit of The Lost Boys (which I love) and her opinion of it was, "but I was like, creepy!"

I'm not making this shit up.

As a lover of literature and a person with deep respect for the process this kind of bullshit offends me. It makes me feel ill. The insipid tripe she pushes on people has vampires that wander around in the day and they sparkle. Get that? They sparkle. And there's a strong message of celibacy in her books. Are you fucking kidding me? Vampires, particularly modern vampires ARE sex! Everything they do is centered around sex either figuratively or literally. You have to be some kind of fucking moron to not see it. Or maybe a mormon like Meyers is. Probably both actually with at least a little fairly serious head trauma thrown in for good measure. It's like writing about werewolves that willingly wear leashes and are housebroken and beg for bacon flavored doggie treats. Actually it's more like trying to make a porn movie when you've never had sex or even seen human genitals before.

Fucking ignorant bitch.

The level of disrespect this dumps on the long history of vampire fiction is something I can't recall ever seeing before. I can't think of another example as bad as this horrid, puerile gunch. Hey I heard of these things called vampires! They're like, these things! And they have, like, teeth! I think! And uh...they do stuff! I'm gonna write a book about them except make them nice and sparkly!

Nex time you get the urge to write Stephenie, do us all a favor and take your head out of your ass, run as fast as you can to the nearest convenient set of train tracks and stand on them. Then shoot yourself in the fucking head a split second before the train splatters your worthless ass all over creation you brainless, contemptible, utterly fucking ignorant imbecile.

I'm thinking most of you probably won;t really understand my intense hatred for this woman and that's a shame. Actually it's probably better for you if you don't.

I had more venom to spit but I'm just too tired for it.

I have one too and it's not all that special

I'd like to share a conversation I was involved in with you, mostly so I can share my pain. Please read to the end as it doesn't go where you think it's going to go.

Me (Seeing something about Sarah Palin): God, I can't stand her. I'm so glad they didn't get elected I can't even tell you.

Woman (who is overly religious): Me too. She shouldn't be anywhere near the White House.

Me: I know! She's such an imbecile! She comes off like a total airhead and that "I'm just a regular soccer mom" schtick is such an obvious put on it makes me physically ill.

Woman: Plus she's a woman.

Me: ...what?

Woman: Women shouldn't hold public office especially vice president or president. She should be home taking care of her family.

Me: What!? (Followed by an angry tirade against this completely ignorant and utterly offensive line of thinking.)

Here I have someone, a woman no less, telling me that no woman should be an elected official because she has no right to not be at home being a servant to her family. Actually no, servants get paid. It was her religion telling her this. Her stupid fucking religion. She's married to a worthless piece of shit by the way who she thinks is better than her based solely on the fact that he has, allegedly, a dick.

The pure ignorance of this line of thinking makes my head hurt. It robs me of coherent argument and leaves me red faced and shouting. Of course I already knew that religion poisons minds but when it leaps out at you when you aren't expecting it in ways that raise the bar for offensive stupidity it's like discovering it for the first time all over again.

I don't give a fuck what your magic book says, it's wrong. Not wrong like you like a band I don't and I call you wrong. Wrong like you saying the sky is brown or water is dry or Pi is 7.1972645. Wrong. Not opinion. Fact. You are wrong. For the love of all things how can people still think this way in the 21st century?

Eventually I remembered my rule and ended the back and forth. It's a good rule so I'll share it with you again. Arguing with religious people is like taking a head first run at a brick wall. When it's over your head will hurt and the wall won't have noticed you were even there.

Thank you, religion, for fucking up yet another otherwise intelligent person with your poisonous ignorance.

Funny like puppies with AIDS

Maybe it's me. Maybe I've been explaining it wrong. Maybe in the middle of explaining it I have, unknowingly, started speaking Swahili. Or maybe everyone else is a fucking moron.

Yeah, probably that last one.

OK, once more from the top for everyone who can't seem to understand simple concepts like fire is hot or stabbing yourself in the face with a jagged pointy stone will hurt you. I'll try to speak slowly and not use too many big words.

It's not funny to purposely get on other people's nerves. Not funny. Not. Fucking. Funny. If you do something that you KNOW is going to piss someone off, you're not funny. You're a fucking nimrod who isn't smart enough to have a real sense of humor. You know how I know it's not funny? I used my psychic powers to read the minds of every single person on the entire planet and it was a unanimous vote. Not one of the people on this planet finds it amusing in even the smallest way when someone tries to irritate them. You know why? BECAUSE YOU'RE FUCKING IRRITATING THEM YOU MOUTH BREATHING, BRAIN DAMAGED SHIT STAIN!

How the fuck do you not understand this? If you do something that you know I hate or know pushes my buttons why in the name of all things great and small would I find that funny? How fucking ignorant do you have to be to think that I would? What the fuck is wrong with you? Are you retarded? Would you think it was funny if I was doing something you hate to you? No, you wouldn't. Because you fucking hate it! And making the drooling twit standing next to your dumb ass laugh doesn't count. He's clearly as fucking idiotic as you are and if you started pissing him off, he'd stop laughing. Because it's not funny! And when your goal is to piss me off and I get pissed off how the fuck did you not see that coming? Why do you always act surprised? You were trying to piss me off! It worked! Now you want to be upset when I start yelling at you? Do the world a favor and go choke on something.

For fuck's sake, I'm not trying to explain String Theory to you after you've taken a sharp blow to the head. I'm saying things that anyone who doesn't expect a hug and a medal every time they run four steps should fucking know.

Fire hot. Face stab hurts. Pissing people off isn't the same as being funny.

Look, if your arsenal of humor is a stockpile of shit that annoys other people, you aren't funny. Acknowledge it, admit it, embrace it and fucking stop trying to fucking be it. You're. Not. Funny. Get over it and shut the fuck up.

The next one that does it is getting punched in the mouth. That's going to be my version of your kind of humor. How hard do you think you'll be laughing with a broken jaw?

Like it wasn't bad enough already

So the TV writers are on strike again. Great. Looking through the disagreement I think both sides have a legit gripe but come on people, not this again. Some shows I like had to go immediately into reruns (Letterman, The Daily Show) and most shows have a few in the can and a few scripts to work with and then they too will start the reruns. They're already talking about scrapping the entire season of Lost, which I like quite a lot, until 2009 and 24 is likely to follow owing to its premise.

You know what it means if this drags on right? Reality shows. Lots of them. The networks are going to try to keep viewers and the only way to make new shows will be to make new shitty reality shows. I already hate all the old shitty reality shows and am on record numerous times about it. I fucking hate them. Now there are going to be a shit load more and y'know what? The lowest common denominator is going to eat it up and beg for more. In case you didn't know, the lowest common denominator is a LOT of people. It's not like most of these people will shrug and turn off the TV and pick up a book. No, no, they'll tune into whatever nitwittery the networks air just to have the TV on. Barn Raising With the Stars! Extreme Celebrity Fishing! I shouldn't do that lest I give them ideas.

This means that even when the strike ends there will be even less room on the schedule for scripted show than there is now. While you would think that less room would mean more competition which would lead to the cream rising to the top, you'd be wrong. It makes sense to think it but it won't happen. Isn't TV in general dumb enough without this? Do we really need to go out of our way to make it worse?

Look TV people, I realize you're just trying to look out for yourselves whichever side you're on but seriously, you're contributing to the further dumbing down of the country and we can't afford to get much dumber. Make a short term deal and get back to work and hammer something else out as you go. My brain begs you.

Game's the same, just got more fierce.

The bigger the awards show, the less relevance it has. Some of you may remember my post about the last Academy Awards and this is worse. Much worse. This is, all by itself, proof that shit just doesn't make any sense in the world of entertainment. I don't watch the Emmy awards but if you do then I kindly ask that you boycott this year.

The Wire was nominated for zero Emmy awards.

Allow me to put that in some kind of context for you. The Wire has, since it began, been one of the most praised and critically hailed shows ever. Ever. I have never heard or seen a bad review of it. I have never heard or seen a merely good review of it. I have ONLY EVER seen over the top great reviews of it. It is regarded, across the board, as one of the best shows to ever be on television and it is held to be the best show on television now by virtually every critic I have read. They make it a point to mention it in their reviews, sometimes multiple times just to make sure you saw it.

This season of The Wire that finished and would be up for consideration, its fourth, was held by all and sundry to be the best season of the show. Think about that. The best season of the best show on TV and one of the best (I've heard some go so far as to say THE best) shows to ever be on TV which makes it one of if not the best season of television to ever be broadcast in this country got nominated for no awards for excellence in television.

What. The. Fuck.

Obviously I love the show and agree with every critic (a rarity to be sure) that there is no better show currently going and that it is very high on the list of best ever. It is that fucking good. Whatever the show you love is that you stop what you're doing to watch, this show is better. No nominations. Not one.

The level of ignorance and stupidity that it takes for this kind of thing to happen makes my head hurt. Support those things that are awesome, people. Somebody damn well has to.